The Asymmetry of Majority and Minority
Jewish people are not in any serious way oppressed in the United States of America. But still, being a member of a religious minority group is a distinctive experience. Even in a country that doesn’t officially make Christianity an official state religion, Christianity seems to be the official religion of the state. When Christmas comes around, everyone gets days off so that people can go spend the holidays with their families. When Passover comes around, you get nothing. Mail comes on Saturday but not on Sunday. Liquor stores are closed on Sunday. That’s life, and it’s hardly the worst thing in the world. But it does give you a different perspective on things. And I think it’s a perspective that would probably help a Jewish judge to understand the claims of minorities religious groups in general. Not just other Jews, but Muslims and Hindus and Jehovah’s Witnesses and all the rest. These insights don’t necessarily determine outcomes, but you could imagine a Christian missing some of the real dynamics here. And by the same token, it strikes me as plausible to say that a Muslim judge or a Hindu judge would have similar virtues.
But this is a way of saying that membership in a religious minority group could enhance a judge’s insight into the constitutional protections due to members of religious minority groups. It’s not a claim about Muslims and Hindus and Jews. It would make no sense to look a Hindu judge in India and attribute special insights to him. For a Christian in the United States to say that being a Christian gives him special insight into religious freedom litigation would be creepy and possibly offensive. But if he was saying that his background growing up as a Christian in Lebanon gives him special insight, that would be a totally different thing.
More broadly, you don’t need to make any claims about the special virtues of any group in particular in order to see the point that a diverse group of decision-makers is going to reach a better understanding of issues than a monolithic group would.
72 Responses to “The Asymmetry of Majority and Minority”
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May 28th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
An atheist would be way better.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Matt,
Stop analyzing this as if there are real critiques of Sotomoayer as a judge or a nominee. The republicans are going to invent whatever reasons they want about why she is a bad nominee, and the democrats will invent their reasons for why she is a great nominee. She has the exact same educations and professional background as Roberts, Alito, and all the other Harvard-Yale-Stanford Law Review editors who went on to become Circuit Court judges, law school professors or high ranking officials in the Justice Department, whether they are liberal or conservative. All of these people are qualified in the sense that they are capable of doing the job – the rest is political theater and it is pointless to get angry about it. Liberals got themselves worked up over over Roberts and Alito, and republicans will get worked up over Sotomayer and whomever comes next.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Great post Matt.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
As a side note, there is a good history book to be written about the relatively rapid decline in virulent anti-semitism in the 2nd half of the 20th century in the United States. If you talk to elderly Jews from, say, a place with a relatively benign reputation like Minneapolis, it is eye opening as to how bad things were at one time, and how quickly that changed.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Just want to say I thought this was a great post. This is the sort of thoughtfulness and lucid explanation that keeps me coming back to this blog.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
This isn’t totally self-evident; or rather, it seems likely enough for certain kinds of diversity, but not for others. Do I want diverse body types in my group? Diverse Myer-Briggs personality types? People with diverse life experiences? Diversity in age? Diversity in language (paging Sapir-Whorf)? Diversity in clothing choices? I think you see the point.
Anyway, I mention it because it sounds like you’re offering a limited defense of Sotomayor’s statements on her latina background. I personally consider this a non-issue, but I think that shifting the topic from her claim of ethnic wisdom to one that revolves around your own experiences as a religious minority make your observation sort of irrelevant.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I have not heard the Sotomayer quote regarding the “richness” of her Latina heritage engaged on the merits of the argument. Not from Fox News, but not from NPR either. Matt’s post does a service in sketching the outlines of what that argument looks like.
Feminist standpoint epistemology is actually a well reasoned position, and far from being racist. I’m pretty persuaded by Sandra Harding, and not just in the context of legal theory, but also in terms of scientific research as well. I think a distinction between cultural insiders and outsiders is crude, but useful. And outsiders, especially successful ones, obviously have the capacity to navigate multiple cultural frameworks. I cannot but see this as a merit.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
a diverse group of decision-makers is going to reach a better understanding of issues than a monolithic group would.
Right. Which is why we have a court of nine members, as opposed to one or three.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Is this a serious defense?
See, there’s this numeral we describe as two. And when we do a process called addition on that numeral with the same numeral, we get a number we call four.
So when I say two plus two is four, I’m not necessarily calling for the end of the United States as we know it.
Even as a joke, we shouldn’t be discussing this controversy over “latina judge” seriously. She’s supposed to be a Latina Supremacist? We’re addressing this like it’s a real point?
May 28th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Even in a country that doesn’t officially make Christianity an official state religion, Christianity seems to be the official religion of the state.
You forget that for Catholics, other Christians are heretics. So Catholics are a religious minority too, and well represented in the Supreme Court.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Not that this is what you meant, but the Republican party keeps thinking it can pry away a chunk of the Jewish vote by Israel hawkishness and so on. So long as their rhetoric is so unfriendly toward the whole idea of minorities participating fully in a plural society, they will only ever win the votes of Jews who literally fantasize about spilling Muslim blood. And thankfully, that is a minority of us.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
To which of these forms of diversity are you attributing a lack of beneficially distinct experience?
Me, I think there’s more forms of diversity that would also benefit the SCOTUS besides those of race and religion: regionality, educational background, sexual orientation, etc. Heck, I wish there was a way we could actually bring the voices of people younger than 50 into politics in a meaningful way too.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
bbaartlog, if Sotamayor had said what Matthew wrote, there would have been little comment, or at least much less comment. I think the confidence Matthew places in his proposition may be excessive, but it is a different proposition than what Sotamayor put forth.
If anybody wants to now differ with me while noting that I am a torture-loving war criminal autistic fuckwit, my response is in the “Stuart Taylor slams Sotamayor” thread.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
for those that think this right wingnuttery should not be pushed back because it should not be taken seriously…you would do well to remember what happens when good people do not disrupt the propaganda of men with terrible motives…it is time to stand up for what is right
May 28th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
This seems right and does a good job of getting to the main points of the issue in general. Some kind of critical mass of diversity is important for good decision-making.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
So long as their rhetoric is so unfriendly toward the whole idea of minorities participating fully in a plural society, they will only ever win the votes of Jews who literally fantasize about spilling Muslim blood. And thankfully, that is a minority of us.
Do they even get that? I never really pegged SLC as a Republican.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
As a second observation, Sotomayor didn’t say that a diverse group can make a better decision than a non-diverse one. She did explicitly say that *she personally* might make a wiser decision, which is a little different. Why this should be a huge issue I don’t know (OMG a tiny moment of ethnic pride! call the thought police!), but it wasn’t the benefit of diverse *groups* that she was touting, so again your defense is beside the point. But as already noted, if this tiny faux pas is the biggest objection the Republicans can come up with, she must be pretty good.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I really don’t care much about this nomination; she’s eminently qualified, it’s largely Obama’s call to begin with and isn’t going to change much anyway.
I just wonder wrt diversity how much of experience in the first 18 years or so of life really stays with someone. Sure, she grew up in working class circumstances, but as an adult she’s lived the life of a typical upper class ivy leauge educated professional – NTTAWWT.
Now, also it’s sure as heck she came up through the professional ranks at a time when sexism was rampant and practically expected. But in terms of her ‘Jenny from block’ cred, it would seem this post overstates things a bit.
Compared to say a woman (or anyone) who went to a tier 2 law school but had a impressive legal career. Or spent a plurality of time in the private sector (but to Sotomayer’s credit, she has more than most and esp the republican appointments). Or did most of their work at non-profits (although the republcans have a stupid aversion to this lately). Really, anything that deviates from the modal resume of Ivy League law school, -> high profile clerkships -> Prosecutors office -> Associate professorships -> Court of appeals -> SCOTUS. Otoh, maybe we want this consistent CV in the same way we have a fairly consistent one for senior military officers and career civil servants.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Yeah, let’s hear it for religious minorities (which include atheists!). But let’s not forget that Christianity has its own minorities…
And what about geographic minorities? Everything West of Chicago is represented by two justices from the Bay Area of California? You’d think geographic considerations would come in, especially as much of the US holds different views on federalism, etc.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I think that’s slightly too static a definition. The US federal courts system, and the Ivy League university system, are both primo Establishment. Some people live their entire lives within its boundaries; some come in from the outside and see its rough edges.
Analogy time: take your life as a par-5 golf hole. Your tee shot represents what you’re born with: natural abilities, family wealth, etc. Going from Dalton to Harvard to DC (sorry, Matt) is a normative Establishment biography; you generally start at point A on the fairway of that particular course. Sometimes your drive puts you in the rough, but you can get out fairly easily. Sometimes you end up in the trees, and it takes a better shot to get onto the green.
The SCOTUS, as I said yesterday, is establishmentarian just by virtue of being part of the establishment. Its members wear funny costumes and operate out of a building with Greek columns on the National Mall. But the Bill of Rights, in particular, is not an establishmentarian document. There’s your tension. It leads to all sorts of odd reversals: John Roberts’ two years on the bench makes him less a part of the judicial establishment than Sotomayor, who has 17 years of experience at the district and appeals level. The same would apply to Diane Wood, who has 14 years on the Seventh Circuit.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Also re: my last post (and in agreement with #6)…
There are plenty of “minority” situations which we can experience which would give us unique insight. Let’s not pretend that the ones we choose to promote are those which are the most politically profitable (on both sides of the aisle).
May 28th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
It seemed to me that Sotomayor was speaking about the intellectual and judicial advantages of being a “wise latina” in deciding cases in general, not in specifically applicable cases (Ricci, e.g.). She was contrasting her view to that of O’Conner’s regarding the aspiration that we are all essentially the same–fair and honest. Sotomayor appears to aspire to the belief that this is not the case, at least in most cases. I don’t think the much trumpeted “context” really saves Sotomayor’s states, which she happened to be giving to an racialist group on campus known as “The Race” (La Raza).
May 28th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
If anybody wants to now differ with me while noting that I am a torture-loving war criminal autistic fuckwit
I just read through about five of your posts on the Stuart Taylor thread. You are in fact a fuckwit, and I’m dumber for parsing through your drivel. Do you in fact support torture as well?
May 28th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Some of the very worst judges in the country are Jewish. Now, may I also add that one of the worst if not the worst Federal Judges in the country is undear old dad. But, having worked as a summer court attendant throughout h.s. and college I saw umpteen obtuse, unsympathetic, gotta look tough as nails lest my superiors think I’m one of them bleeding heart type Jews shithead Jewish judges. Let us not forget that the judge who sentenced the Rosenbergs to their deaths was Jewish as was the idiot old man in the Chicago 7 trial.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
if Sotamayor had said what Matthew wrote, there would have been little comment, or at least much less comment. I think the confidence Matthew places in his proposition may be excessive, but it is a different proposition than what Sotamayor put forth.
Obviously she didn’t say *exactly* what Matt wrote — she used, you know, different words — but to my mind their respective propositions are virtually indinstinguishable. And I think Matt does a service to spell it out in a way that doesn’t push reflexive buttons the way her formulation unfortunately did.
Sotomayor didn’t say that a diverse group can make a better decision than a non-diverse one. She did explicitly say that *she personally* might make a wiser decision, which is a little different.
Oh good grief, she was *giving an example* to illustrate a general proposition. This is not difficult.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I think this ties to the fact that most young people laugh knowingly when they hear the Avenue Q song “we’re all a little bit racist,” and they roll their eyes when someone (usually an older person) claims when they meet someone, they’re colorblind and just don’t notice if someone is black or white.
Sotomayor isn’t saying anything more profound than what Alito said talked about how being descended from Italian immigrants gave him insight on immigration and a personal connection on that issue that made him a better judge.
But she’s pointing out that Latinos are allowed to say that too, because their American experience is just as valid as anyone else’s. And that yep, she’s got prejudices just like you, and it’s the job of a judge to try and keep the empathy but identify and set aside the prejudice that comes from that unique experience. And to let real-world experience enhance rather than interfere with the impartiality.
She’s not pretending that most women react differently to hearing about adolescent girls being strip searched than men do. Frankly, many fathers of adolescent girls react differently to this than non-fathers of adolescent girls do.
This is just being honest.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Will Allen, if you weren’t a totally dishonest fuckhead with delusions of basic reading skills then there wouldn’t be a debate either and you could go back to getting your four-hundred pound ass excited over the senseless slaughter of innocent Iraqis (in order to assure their “freedom,” as you have explained previously). But you are and so we are dealing with your thuggish refusal to read the actual words.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Can anyone seriously provide an example of a case wherein a “wise white male,” thanks to the richness of his life experience, come to a “better” decision than that of a wise latina woman?
May 28th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
To come to the defense of my fellow new media know-it-all, Matthew Yglesias (except he does it for a living, which makes it different) I would point out that this post is definitely in the context of Sotomayor’s remarks about a wise Latina woman, but it does not pretend to explain those remarks.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Sotomayor’s comments remind me of what Obama’s spiritual mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s NAACP speech. He spoke of brain differnences between black and white students. Not superior, he emphasized, but…different. By the way, what exactly was she talking about when she spoke of “physiological” differences? I know this kind of talk is common is common in university humanities dept’s, but from an almost-SC Justice?
May 28th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Matt’s really struggling hard here to ante up enough chips to get in the “I have special insights” game.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Re: But if he was saying that his background growing up as a Christian in Lebanon gives him special insight, that would be a totally different thing.
You realise, of course, that Christians were never intended to be a minority in Lebanon? Lebanon was founded explicitly as a Christian homeland: a Christian nation for a Christian people. The reason it has a Muslim majority today is because most of the Christians decided to emigrate to Europe and South America, thus abandoning their nation in its hour of greatest need. Lebanon is perhaps the world’s best example of the suicidal and insane folly of liberal secular cosmopolitanism.
I would suspect that the experience of growing up as a Maronite in Lebanon would make someone highly _intolerant_ rather than the opposite. Intolerant to some extent towards Islam, but to a much greater extent intolerant towards liberal cosmopolites and to those who hold that it is a matter of no great import whether our children shall grow up to recite the Quran or to recite the Athanasian Creed.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
One of the most amazing courtroom rulings from the bench I ever witnessed was in a Federal Court in San Francisco. The Judge a white male in an armed bank robbery case heard the defense argue that the defendant (Latino) was a salt of the earth family man (with only a misdemeanor conviction)and that he just “snapped” due to losing his job. The Judge (in lieu of a jury) began to talk about “fugue moments” in classical music and how suddenly we can all be in the grip of something outside of ourself. He ACQUITED the motherf.!!! No lie, G.I.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
John Smith: Capital gains tax. Obvi.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
The full context of the speech. If you read and understand this, you can not honestly say she is claiming superior judgement for latinas in all matters. To claim that this speech is racist requires dishonesty or a lack of comprehension.
Copied from http://mediamatters.org/research/200905270005
May 28th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
By the way, what exactly was she talking about when she spoke of “physiological” differences?
To put in in terms that lkjlk can understand: boys have a pee-pee, but girls have a hoo-hah. Also, when boys grow up, they can’t have babies.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
As usual, liberalism, as that word is typically, and unfortunately, understood in this forum, prevails!
May 28th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
If you peek under the robe of Justice Ginsberg you will see something different than if you peek under the robe of Justice Scalia.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Endless grasping at straws. This candidate was nominated precisely because she is willing to warp Due Process, and that seems to be the last remaining basis for Yglesias to support the candidate.
The criticism directed at her loose interpretation of the law will ultimately be magnified and show up as Obam’s willingness to let Due Process slip away, as he is doing with bond holders.
Ultimately, these ongoing stunts will result in a Republican resurgence in 2010. Between now and the, the progressives can kiss off their Health Care, because this candidate will sow so much distrust that nothing will get through Congress.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Hey, Hector, do you mind contributing some irrelevant drivel? That would be great. Thanks!
May 28th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
“Ultimately, these ongoing stunts will result in a Republican resurgence in 2010. Between now and the, the progressives can kiss off their Health Care, because this candidate will sow so much distrust that nothing will get through Congress.”
As someone said in a different thread, I’d like to be your bookie.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Whiteness and maleness probably don’t help that much.
Having been an intelligence officer might give insight into cases dealing with sensitive information. Having drafted legislation might give insight into legislative intent. Having grown up on a farm could grant insight into cases dealing with land use issues. Having a father who ran a steel mill could grant insight into laws concerning fair trade and labor issues. Being the child of an immigrant from a despised nationality could give insight into discrimination based on national origin. Those five things cover six of the white men on the court (not Alito). Their life experience has value.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Ryan, if she was giving a specific example to illustrate the general proposition that having people with many sorts of experiences on a court will lead to better decisions by that court, she did so in a remarkably inarticulate manner. It is more likely she was indulging in what was called above “ethnic pride”, which is among the more mild forms of bigotry one will encounter, and certainly not even close to being a disqualifyiing form.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Nothing from Al? Maybe his head exploded. Or he hurt his finger, and thus can’t read right now.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I just wonder wrt diversity how much of experience in the first 18 years or so of life really stays with someone.
You know, there’s a reason those are called the formative years…..
May 28th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
“Having been an intelligence officer might give insight into cases dealing with sensitive information. Having drafted legislation might give insight into legislative intent. Having grown up on a farm could grant insight into cases dealing with land use issues. Having a father who ran a steel mill could grant insight into laws concerning fair trade and labor issues. Being the child of an immigrant from a despised nationality could give insight into discrimination based on national origin. Those five things cover six of the white men on the court (not Alito). Their life experience has value.”
Okay, so if a white male had made the mirror image statement of what Sotomayor said, you would have accepted his explanation if he gave your laundry list of bullshit?
May 28th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
“Whiteness and maleness probably don’t help that much.”
Look at all the great things white males have accomplished. Can I be proud of being white? White males have a rich history of accomplishment. Shit, your tv, cell phone, car, plane, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, electronic music, a whole host of medical advances, innumerable insights into the world and our existence. Why does everybody hate us? We fucking rock.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
That’s what I figured. But then what physiological advantage gives males better insight than a woman into to a legal issue?
May 28th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Will, your obtuseness is what heaps abuse on your head. That you find someone “inarticulate” is frankly, fucking hilarious. You voted for the single least articulate candidate for President in 40 years – twice. Even after he started slaughtering innocents. Common decency would have you just stop broadcasting your hatred for anyone not a white male.
Inarticulate…ha..ha..ha.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Ryan, if she was giving a specific example to illustrate the general proposition that having people with many sorts of experiences on a court will lead to better decisions by that court, she did so in a remarkably inarticulate manner. It is more likely she was indulging in what was called above “ethnic pride”, which is among the more mild forms of bigotry one will encounter, and certainly not even close to being a disqualifyiing form.
I’m glad to hear you say it’s not disqualifying because I agree. To my ear, she was asked to speak about diversity, and instead of (or rather, in addition to) making some austere, abstract argument about its benefits like Matt has made above, she picked an illustration based on her own personal experience and perspective. Yes, with a little ethnic (and also female) pride thrown in, which is unfortunate only in that is activated the gag reflex in Republican quarters and thus marginally (though I doubt decisively) hurt her career prospects.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
White males have a rich history of accomplishment.
Oh, this is getting to be a classic troll. I’m sure that ljlkj was also born out of his daddy’s urethra.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
“Obam’s willingness to let Due Process slip away, as he is doing with bond holders”
Um, Lochner was rightly overruled in 1937, and we are not going back to those bad old days. Obama has done nothing against Due Process.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
The real fact that gender discrimination takes place and is experienced by a large number of women means that male judges are more likely to aquire a wide range of other experiences which they can call upon to assist them in understanding the implications of the cases they decide.
As I pointed out above, One of our sitting justices – Stevens – was an intelligence officer in WWII. He dealt with codes and coded information. His intimate experience with the real consequences of the loss of secret information informs his judgement on the bench. There were not a lot of female intelligence officers. Women are denied access to these life experiences in proportion to the discrimination they encounter.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Ryan, I would disagree with the proposition that one has to be a Republican to find the comments problematic. Here are some comments by the noted right-winger (sarcasm) Ta-nehisi Coates which takes issue with Sotamayor’s remarks.
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/05/about_that_wise_latina_statement.php-
Look, the people saying this disqualifies her are ridiculous, but so is the demand, as exhibited in this thread, that it be ritualistically chanted’ “Judge Sotamayor is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
May 28th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I have said for years that the Burger Court’s (and most of the Rehnquist Court’s) Establishment Clause jurisprudence was best explained by the complete absence of Jews on the Supreme Court from 1968 through 1993.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I find it very unlikely that you witnessed this. In all likelihood, you are claiming to have witnessed something you heard or read about that was a distorted significantly.
There are several cases in which appeals courts (only judges, no juries) decided cases concerning psychiatric defenses involving bank robbery. Most of these involved claims of momentary, impulsive loss of control. The defense used in one of them was that the defendent was in a post-fit fugue state due to psychomotor epilepsy. His appeal was denied and his conviction upheld.
You seem to have combined elements of these things, rationalized the lack of a jury and changed the result to be more satisfyingly outrageous.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Comparing Sonia Sotomayor to an observant Jewish person completely misses the point. The Jewish person is set apart from the Christian mainstream of American society by a number of significant, unavoidable factors, for instance the general non-recognition of Jewish religious holidayst that you mentioned, and therefore might have a different outlook, or perspective, on other religious matters such as the status of Hindus.
Sotomayor is different from the white mainstream of American society solely because of the only-in-America artificial construction of the Hispanic race or ethnicity. Many Puerto Ricans or other Caribbean Hispanics look distinctly mulatto, but she’s not one of them. She looks more Jewish than anything else, and there even seems to be something vaguely Asian-looking about her.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
This is perhaps the most inoffensive, anodyne commentary on minority-majority relations imaginable.
Nonetheless, it’s going to bring a passel of frothing idiots to the thread.
Some people can’t get out of bed in the morning without the bracing sensation of believing they’re oppressed.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I do think that individual Jewish people still face discrimination, especially in certain parts of the country. Usually this is pretty mild, particularly when compared to what, for example, Muslims might face.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
What Matt is saying is Sonia Sotomayor is a double-reverse non-racist, and is therefor fit for duty.
I think he is also saying, that my tribe, white ex-Christians turned ex-Buddhist, need a holiday to call their own.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Not if he gave it in the context of a discussion on sexual and gender discrimination.
The point is, there is no mirror image situation. Since white men are not discriminated against as a group, a white judge has no business making a mirror image remark. White men have had the luxury of being judged as individuals, and therefore are really restricted to making analogous statements about white men as individuals.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Let’s play a game. I’m Indian-American like Bobby Jindal, yet I would have supported the Democrats fighting against him taking the bench as long as they made the case against a possible future Justice Kenneth the Paige on racial grounds. Why? Because I’m a liberal who is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environmental regulation, etc. Similarly, a conservative Indian-American could easily oppose a more experienced and qualified version of myself being seated for similar ideological reasons.
Yet this is not the type of logic I’m hearing from conservatives these days. One of my favorite American presidents in history was Eisenhower, yet the type of rhetoric that animates Sarah Palin-style GOPers these days would make him trash a hotel room out of justifiable anger. It’s all about hate against feminists, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, and ethnic minorities and masturbation about how great conservative white “straight” Protestant men are and how true women submit to them. It’s sickening. Great job alienating everyone not like you, conservatives.
And Al, everyone here knows your arguments are based on the idea that you think every American who isn’t you is an unthinking retard. Go fuck yourself, you unthinking excuse for a cunt.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Stupid drunken typing. Anyway,
Should have been:
as they didn’t make the case against a possible future Justice Kenneth the Paige on racial grounds.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:40 am
The problem is Will, you’ve been spouting lies about pretty much every Democratic politician you can name. Hell, your whole defense for the forty plus years of racism that has benefited the Republican Party is “Al Sharpton.” Which is inexplicable given your love for mass murder. After all, Sharpton, even in your deranged telling of the story, didn’t manage to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands. How do you explain your actual vote for the guy who actually gave orders that resulted in mass murder and your opposition to someone whose words may have been an indirect cause of several deaths?
I know you have this fetish for “freedom,” but we both know that we’ve discussed this and you used to argue how murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis saved lives. In other words, you have shifted your argument because even you recognized that your underlying premise was monstrous.
You haven’t come up with even the flimsiest of rationales for opposing Obama’s choice. All you’ve done is expose your sensitivity to “anti-white” racism and show how much more important you think that is than every day racism.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:51 am
[...] And more and more people aren’t doing Mayberry – the Andy Griffith Show became camp long ago. They have figured out that diversity, and minority voices, are useful, as Matthew Yglesias argues: [...]
May 29th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Actually, Hector(#32), if you were to repatriate all of the refugees in Lebanon the country would be about 50/50 Christian/Muslim, which is what it was always designed to be, a place where 17 distinct religious communities inextricably bound by common geography could live in peace and prosperity. Heck, if you take the Druze at their word that they’re not Muslims, Lebanon is at this moment a majority Christian country. Now, hopefully Matt will find better random examples in the future and you’ll quit trying to tie the strands of your ignorance into reasonable discourse.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Re Njori
Actually, Mr. Njori should read Mr. Trevors’ contribution at comment # 24. Apart from his usual antisemitic rants, we see that he is apparently estranged from his dad, calling him one of the worst federal judges on the bench. It should be apparent that Mr. Trevor is a very troubled individual who is desperately in need of assistance. Mr. Trevor, get help.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Endy,
Don’t be silly. I didn’t blame Palestinian refugees for the plight of Lebanon, I blamed Christian EMIGRATION not Muslim IMMIGRATION. And I can’t think of a better recipe for religious strife than a population divided 50-50.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I’m also surprised at the point about Christian religious holidays. Last I checked, we get ONE religious holiday off (Christmas) and not one of the more important ones. We don’t get Good Friday, Maundy Thursday, Epiphany, Ascension, or other holy days off which are probably more important than Christmas.
That’s fine (and it would also be fine to make people take a vacation day at Christmas) but it means that America isn’t a Christian country any more than India is a Hindu country. America is, as it has been from the beginning, a secular country founded by secularists on secular principles, in which fundamentalist Christians make up a large and politically influential segment of the population. There’s nothing Christian about our political system. Hell, many majority-Muslim or majority-atheist countries have more Christian public holidays than America.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Ryan, I would disagree with the proposition that one has to be a Republican to find the comments problematic.
Will Allen, I did not propose that one must be Republican to find the comments problematic. I simply said that it is only the Republican gag reflex that matters to Sotomayor’s career prospects at the moment. Ta-Nehisi Coates is not trying to mobilize anyone against her confirmation, and neither, you’ve made clear, are you.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I just wanted to say that this is exactly right. As I grew up, I was pretty much non-minority in every way (white, male, straight, middle-class, raised Lutheran). And when you live like that, it’s hard to recognize discrimination, because things that are discriminatory just seems normal. To the extent that you see discrimination at all, you only see it against yourself–against your people. Nobody in my family thought it was weird that so many CEOs are white men, or that my honors classes in high school were pretty much all white*. But ask about the NBA–hey! How come only black guys can play basketball?
And so it went. When I went to college, I started thinking about myself and evaluating what I believed, and I realized I could no longer call myself a Christian, because I didn’t believe. I started identifying as an atheist. And guess what? All of a sudden, I started seeing discrimination against non-Christians all the fucking time! I mean, stuff that wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow when I was identifying as a Christian–stuff like “In God We Trust”, or using “Christian” as a generic term to mean “a good person”–was suddenly popping right out in my face and bugging me. And that started to make me think about the other areas where I was still in the majority, and how likely it was I still had blind spots in those areas. And I’m sure I still do have those blind spots. But I try to not to automatically dismiss concerns from minorities about discrimination anymore, because I realize that I’m predisposed not to see that. Simply put, if there was discrimination I’d be the last to know.
And I doubt that I’d realize that if I had stayed in the majority all my life. And I think anyone raised that way is likely to have that problem, and has a good chance of not even realizing it.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Very good post, right in there with the bush social security posts that dragged me into this blog in the first place.
I think even Steven Cobert’s on-air persona could grok this, if only along the lines of “I don’t see race, but I do know a heathen when I see one.”